A wide variety of Indic traditions (traditions and practices of Indian origin including, most significantly, forms of postural and meditational yoga, tantra, chanting, and ayurvedic healing practices) circulate today within transnational networks of cosmopolitan spiritual seekership. These traditions are promoted by entrepreneurs from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds and nationalities, many of them Anglophone, who range from high-profile gurus heading multi-national organisations, to relatively low-profile individuals running small-scale and localised centres, workshops and classes.

This panel aims to explore the ways in which recognisably Indic ideas and practices are transmitted by these individuals and institutions to audiences of spiritual seekers in the West. It aims, in particular, to explore how the concerns/ preoccupations of ‘spiritual seekers’ in the West shape these traditions. The panel organiser would thus welcome papers which explore the interface between the contemporary Western milieu of religiously unaffiliated ‘spiritual seekership’, and the traditions and practices of Indian origin circulating in the West today. Contributions exploring colonial precedents to the Indic traditions currently circulating in the Western mind-body-spirit milieu are also welcome.